“Will you go to Boston with me?” he asked.
She paused, trying to read his eyes. There was light in them now. “I’d like that,” she replied. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”
“I…asked you here because I need your help in a decision I’ve been trying to make. I don’t know if I can make it alone, but it’s a very important one.”
“What is it?”
“Usher Armaments,” he said. “It’s got to be shut down. The weapons have got to stop rolling off those assembly lines, Raven.”
“If that’s your decision,” she told him firmly, “the Democrat will stand behind you.”
Rix rose from the bed. He began pressing buttons on the control console, and the television screens flickered on, showing scenes of the Usher world. In the glow, Rix’s face was heavily lined. “I want to shut it down, but my sister was right. Someone will always make the weapons. Does that mean there’ll always be wars? Are we so hopeless that we can see no end to the destruction? My God… I’ve thought about this day after day, and I still can’t decide. If I shut down Usher Armaments, more than six thousand people will lose their jobs. If I don’t, there’ll be no end to the weapons; they’ll get more insidious, more deadly, year by year.”
He held the scepter up before her. His hand was shaking. “I know what this means now, and what it meant to all the Ushers—power. Why can’t I throw this away? Why can’t I snap it over my knee? God, I’ve tried! But something inside me doesn’t want to give up the power!”
Rix’s face was tormented with doubts. “Do I shut down Usher Armaments, and lose whatever influence I might have over this madness? Or do I let the factories churn out the bombs and missiles, and join the madness? What do I decide?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Usher?”
Rix looked toward the door, where the maid stood. “Yes? What is it?”
“You have some visitors, sir. A General McVair and a General Berger. Mr. Meredith’s with them, and they’re askin’ permission to come through the front gates.”
Rix sighed deeply and let the air trickle from his nostrils. “All right, Mary,” he said finally. “Let them come in.” He ran a hand across his face. “I knew I couldn’t keep them away for long,” he told Raven. “They’re going to be carrying their briefcases and their plans. They’re going to smile and tell me how good I look, considering Walen’s tragic death. Then it’ll start, Raven. What do I tell them?”
“Whatever you decide,” she said, “I’ll help you. I’ll stand with you. Use your chance. Be the Usher who makes a difference.”
Rix stared at her, and suddenly he knew what decision he would make when he faced those smiling generals in his father’s house. He prayed to God that it would be the right one.
He took Raven’s hand, and they went down to face the future.
46
COLD WIND BLEW off the black lake and into New Tharpe’s face.
He stood on the frigid shore, wearing the heavy fleece-lined coat that Mr. Usher had sent him while he was still in the Asheville hospital. He would always carry on his side a pattern of jagged scars, a reminder of his battle with Greediguts.
The sky was a pale, featureless gray. There was snow in those clouds, he thought. But the cold wouldn’t be so bad this year, since Mr. Usher had had the Tharpe cabin insulated. He’d offered central heating, but Myra Tharpe had said she didn’t want everybody on the mountain coming to her house.
Across the lake, the ruins of Usher’s Lodge jutted up from the island like broken teeth. The bridge had not been repaired, and there was no way to reach the island except by boat.
Which was fine with New. He wouldn’t set foot over there for a million dollars.
He walked along the lake’s edge, the water whispering at his feet. The tip of the gnarled cane he carried poked holes in the black mud where the water licked up.
When the tunnel’s ceiling had collapsed, New had held on to the Mountain King’s wand as he was battered back and forth between the walls. He’d been able to grip his fingers in a hole where several stones had dislodged from the ceiling, and he’d hung there like a flag as the water churned around him. He’d fought upward, the currents shoving him forward and pulling him back, and then he was spat out of the tunnel by the force of conflicting currents and pushed to the surface. Rough waves had slammed him to shore, and he’d lain stunned and gasping, with two broken ribs, until Raven and Mr. Usher had found him.
He’d come down here from the mountain several times before, to see what the lake had belched out. Once there were hundreds of silver knives, forks, and spoons stuck in the mud; once two whole suits of armor had washed up. But the strangest thing he’d found was a muddy stuffed horse that looked as if it were still running a race. On its flanks were deep gashes that appeared to have been made by spurs.
New stopped to pick up the rags of a silk shirt with the wand; then he let it fall back into the water. After it was over and he’d come out of the hospital, he’d found that his rage was gone. Nathan had been avenged, and the Pumpkin Man was dead. Greediguts was buried somewhere in the mud and debris. He hoped the Mountain King was finally at rest. He was the man of the house, and he had to go on. He was working hard at making his peace with his mother, and she collected and read the Democrat now that it carried his name on the masthead as copyboy.
At first she’d balked at what he’d wanted done when he got home from the hospital, but finally she agreed.
Behind the house, they’d buried the Mountain King and the bones of his sister on either side of Pa’s grave.
He stopped to watch a flock of blackbirds fly across the lake.
Now there was no Lodge to crash into. The birds and ducks were coming back.
He stared at the island, and ran his fingers over the wand. There was still power in the wand that he didn’t understand. Sometimes he thought he should have drowned in that tunnel, but the wand had somehow given him strength enough to pull himself out.
It was often hard to keep himself under control, but he was working on that, too. One day he’d flipped Bully Boy Vickers for knocking down another, weaker boy at school. Bully Boy never knew what hit him. But for the most part, New minded his manners. Sometimes it was more fun to work for what you wanted, anyway. Like his job at the Democrat. Raven said his English was coming along so well that he might be able to write a story soon.
The magic was still there, though. It would always be there. He would just have to figure out when and where to use it.
He looked down at a beautiful green plate, half buried in the mud. He bent to pick it up—and exposed the black slugs that squirmed beneath it. New skimmed the green plate over the lake, and it sank in the water.
The chill reddened his cheeks. He watched the island, and listened.
Sometimes, when the wind was just right and the birds were silent, he imagined he heard a soft whisper that came from the ruins. He was never sure, though; it was just something that came and went when he wasn’t listening for it.
He started to walk on—and then stopped in his tracks.
Floating amid brown weeds five feet from shore was a gray cap, splattered with mud.
New waited for the cap to wash to shore, but it was hung in the weeds. He advanced a few feet into the chilly water, then reached out with the wand and started to lift the cap out.
And as he picked it up, the thing rose up from underneath it—a muddy, decayed, and skeletal corpse, wearing a gray coat with silver buttons in the shape of roaring lion’s faces.
New screamed and tried to back away, but the mud closed around his boots and locked him.
The thing—what was left of the Pumpkin Man—knocked the wand aside, reached out its long, dripping arms, and clutched New’s throat in bony hands, squeezing with demonic strength…squeezing…squeezing…
New gasped for breath and sat up in bed.
It was still dark outside. There was sweat on his face, and he sat until his fit of shivering had passed.
The same
dream! he thought. It was the same dream again!
His mother was sleeping, and he didn’t want to wake her, but he rose from the bed and took the wand from where it leaned in the corner. He went out to the front room. The last embers of the fire glowed. Outside the cabin, a restless wind moved across Briartop Mountain like the sound of something dark and lonely, searching.
The same dream. Why do I keep having the same dream? he thought.
New stood at the window, listening to the high shriek of the wind. The insulation that Mr. Usher had put in kept the house warm. He had a busy day at school tomorrow and he had to be rested, but still—he paused, listening, his face mirroring unspoken concerns.
Was it over? he wondered. Would it ever really be over? Or would the evil just take some other form and come back stronger—maybe looking for him?
If so, he had to be ready.
His hands tightened around the wand.
The wind changed direction and tone. It dropped to a low moan, and beat against the cabin with a strange, steady rhythm.
New listened.
And imagined he heard the sound of a pendulum out there in the dark, swinging back and forth…back and forth…
He hoped he imagined it.
Oh God, he hoped.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright 1984 by Robert R. McCammon
cover design by Thomas Ng
978-1-4532-3215-6
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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